Boy racers First impressions are everything, whether you're looking for a job, a date, or coming across a band for the first time — particularly one with a goofy-ass name that's made you ignore them for months.

Heartthrob Obviously there aren't meaningful lines between dance, pop, and indie-rock anymore, since more and more instrument-focused acts born as rock bands are leaning on the techniques of electronic music production to modernize their sound.

Grand scale Sonic mastermind Zack Sarzana (who returned from a sojourn to New York City a while back) and bandmates Jimmy Rossi Jr. and John McGuigan have always had a knack for finding the plot in a vast haze of feedback, occasionally shaping that cosmic stuff into a pop song cloaked in noise; or, at other times, simply laying waste to the room with power blasts of guitar-pedal mayhem.

Fully operational The songs from Austin noise-pop trio Ringo Deathstarr — in particular, the devastating dopamine rush of "So High," which features a string of effects pedals marked "MBV" and "J+MC" and twitchy, whorling waves of feedback and call-and-response male/female vocals — have me pressing the play button on my computer repeatedly, like a lab monkey waiting for the cocaine pellet to pop out.

Post-hype sleeper Three for three with critically acclaimed #1 albums in their native UK. Top spots in countries around the world with each release. Early hype for their forthcoming Suck It and See (Domino). That's a pretty good track record.

Second that emotion For fanboys of a certain, oh, let's call it a distinguished temporal status, it was the emo-nerd equivalent of leaked footage from a new Star Wars installment showing up online: last August, the long-pined-for defunct Florida band Further Seems Forever released a video of themselves rehearsing their 2001 anthem "The Moon Is Down."

Soul mission Quite a month for Brit-rock fans of a certain age, innit? Thus far, we've seen a new Radiohead disc, Liam Gallagher resurfacing with Beady Eye, and even a Primal Scream tour behind the 20th anniversary of Screamadelica (though only in the UK, sadly). Now comes ol' Mad Richard himself.